"She's highly
marketable, and without her I would expect interest in the games from U.S.
viewers to drop," said Mark Conrad, professor of sports law at Fordham
University.

...

"There aren't
that many well-known American athletes in the games, and she was probably the
major draw," he said.

Conrad was also quoted in the New
York Times about a lawsuit settlement which will allow former National
Football League players suffering from health problems to receive as much as $5
million each.

According to the Times,
some former players have indicated that the settlement is insufficient and are
inclined to turn it down because they say not enough money will be available
for players struggling with memory loss, anger management and other problems.

Still, Conrad doesn’t see too many former players opting
out:

“I think this is
pretty much a done deal,” said Mark Conrad, who teaches sports law at the
Gabelli and Graduate Schools of Business at Fordham University. “Are people
going to go to litigation by themselves and spend years doing this? I thought
the $760 million was too low, but time is not on the side of people with these
conditions.”

Over on the local politics side of things, New York City
welcomed its first new mayor in more than a decade, and Christina Greer,
assistant professor of political science, has kept busy giving interviews.

Former President Clinton swears in new mayor Bill de Blasio.Image via The Nation.

Greer provided live analysis on NY1 during Mayor Bill de Blasio’s inauguration (it was cold one! See video here). She also penned
an opinion piece for The
New York Times’ “Room for Debate”
section, which asked if speakers at the Jan. 1st inaugural were rude to the
former mayor or just “voicing the frustrations of millions of New Yorkers who
are rarely heard.”

“If anyone expected
the inauguration of the first Democratic mayor in 20 years to serve as an
occasion to celebrate the accomplishments of his predecessor, Michael
Bloomberg, while ignoring the issues of stop-and-frisk, homelessness,
hyper-development of neighborhoods and rising inequities in general, they were
sorely mistaken.”

Still, DeBlasio has a lot to prove, Greer added:

“It is now up to Mayor
de Blasio to make his promises a reality. If not, he will be the one sitting
bundled up on a cold January day in 2018, listening to future poets, activists
and politicians go on about how he disappointed New Yorkers.”

Read the entire piece, and the opinions of others who
weighed in on the same topic, here.

Finally, in other media clips news related to Fordham and the new mayor, a Dec. 13 article
in The New York Times included a book
published by Fordham University Press as “suggested reading for de Blasio:”

“The
Accidental Playground: Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and
Unplanned” (Fordham University Press). Daniel Campo, a former New York
City planner, considers the serendipitous development of Williamsburg and
concludes: “In contrast to urban space produced through conventional planning
and design, the accidental playground that evolved on the North Brooklyn
waterfront generated vitality through immediate and largely unmeditated action.
The waterfront was there for the claiming, and people went out and did just
that without asking for permission, holding meetings or making plans.”